On the evolution of western regime theory and its significance to modern bourgeois constitutional revolution.

From Theoretical Construction to Realistic System —— The Development and Evolution of Western Democratic Thought

First, the evolution and development of Fang's theory of political democracy

1. Evolution of the meaning of political democracy

First of all, from the origin of western political democracy, the word democracy comes from ancient Greek and consists of two phrases: demos and kratos. The former refers to aristocratic rule or elite rule. The latter refers not only to all citizens living in a specific city-state, but also to ordinary people, the lower class, the lower class and the "mob". In the middle of15th century BC, when the Greeks combined Demos with Kratos and expressed a new political life style with the concept of democracy for the first time, what he summarized was the direct democratic political practice implemented by the ancient Greek city-states represented by Athens at that time. That is, "people rule" or "governed and ruled by the people directly or through representatives elected by various districts" 1 In this direct democratic system, the citizens' assembly is the highest authority, and "the citizens' assembly has the final decision on war, treaties, finance, legislation and various public affairs" .2 However, the democracy at that time excluded immigrants, women and slaves.

The ancient Greeks coined the word democracy. However, the Greek ideas and practices about democracy are completely different from contemporary democracy. Many Greek philosophers and historians hold a negative attitude towards Greek democracy and describe Pinocchio as a government ruled by ignorant people or poor people. Then the idea of democracy was silent for more than 2000 years.

Look at the bourgeois revolution. During the British bourgeois revolution of 1640, the "Equality Party" once raised the banner of democracy in a short time, but they were only a small group with little influence on the basic political system. In the United States, the framers of the Constitution generally hold a negative attitude towards "democracy". Madison assumes that democracy is the direct rule of citizens in the Collected Works of Federalists, and thinks that the father of the American Constitution wants to create a * * * republic based on representative system, not a "democratic system". In Britain, the modern political system established after 1688 is also described as representative government. It can be seen that in that period, the Republic and representative government were the basic models of revolutionary ideals and political system innovation, but the concept of democracy was not given new connotations.

/kloc-during the western social revolution in the 0/9th century, the concept of democracy gradually gained modern significance and became a basic concept reflecting bourgeois representative politics. In Britain, after two electoral system reforms (1832 and 1867), the bourgeoisie and the proletariat gained the right to vote respectively. After 1867, the right to participate in elections gradually expanded to the majority of male citizens, which was completely different from the situation that the voting rights of parliamentary representatives were controlled by a few people after 1688 glorious revolution. In France, after the 1848 revolution, adult men were quickly elected to participate in the political power. In the United States, this situation is gradually realized in 1820- 1830 with the expansion of national participation rights. Only in this period, the concept of democracy was given a new meaning to describe the representative government system of modern large nation-states. This new representative government is elected by the overwhelming majority of male citizens through free competition.

In modern times, the understanding of the meaning of democracy is controversial. Among them, the debate between normative democracy theory and competitive democracy theory has the greatest influence. Traditional democratic theory mainly defines democracy from the source of government authority and the purpose of government. Schumpeter regarded democracy as a "method" from the procedural point of view, and put forward a new definition of democracy: "Democratic method is an institutional arrangement to realize political decision-making. Under this arrangement, some people gain decision-making power by competing for people's votes. " Lipsey also believes: "Democracy in a complex society can also be defined as a social mechanism, which allows as many people as possible to make choices in the competition for political positions, thus affecting major decisions." Later, Dahl also tried to build a realistic democracy with competition and participation as the main standards to replace the traditional idealistic democracy. In the multi-head regime published by 197 1, the traditional democratic concept was replaced by multi-head regime. According to this definition of democracy, any political system is a democratic political system as long as its top political leader is elected freely and regularly by the people, and election becomes the only important criterion to measure whether a political system is democratic or not. Since 1970, Dahl's definition has become the most popular democracy in the west. five

2. The evolution of western political and democratic thoughts.

In the early western and German enlightenment, democratic thoughts mainly focused on the ideal social principles of freedom and equality. This is inseparable from the germination and growth of capitalist relations in western Europe during the Renaissance. Scholars in the period of humanistic movement emphasized freedom of will and equality of human beings. Religious reformers emphasized freedom of belief and church democracy, thus resisting the oppression of the new bourgeoisie by the church in many aspects such as politics and economy. Calvin, a religious reformer, resolutely opposed the monarchy in the country's political system. He believed that sovereignty should belong to the majority, and in 154 1, he established a political system of integrating politics and religion in Geneva, which provided a model for bourgeois democracy. Hegel, the representative of German classical idealism, combined opposing feudal autocracy with praising freedom, democracy and equality. It has been put forward that "rationality and freedom will always be our slogan!" 7 "In the final analysis, everything revolves around one person, who holds all the power. Because this person is recognized and respected, human rights cannot be guaranteed. " eight

17-18th century During the western bourgeois revolution, democratic thoughts were more embodied as the program of political revolution. The fundamental purpose of bourgeois political revolution is to overthrow the decadent feudal autocracy and establish a unified bourgeois dictatorship, which is conducive to the greater development of capitalist commodity economy. Therefore, the bourgeois revolution put forward higher requirements for the development of liberal democracy theory. Spinoza, a great Dutch philosopher and political thinker, regards freedom of thought and speech as a standard to measure the quality of a government. He has repeatedly pointed out that "the real purpose of politics is freedom" 9 reflects the strong will and revolutionary courage of the bourgeoisie in the rising period, which laid the ideological foundation for the Dutch revolution and opened the curtain for the bourgeois political revolution in the second half of the16th century. We are familiar with Locke's theory of "natural human rights", Montesquieu's theory of "separation of powers" and Rousseau's exposition on freedom, equality and people's sovereignty, all of which meet the revolutionary needs of overthrowing feudal autocracy and establishing bourgeois dictatorship. Later history proved that the revolutionary practice of Britain, France and the United States was also guided by the above ideas. Because this history is well known, I won't go into details. In addition, robespierre, a revolutionary during the French Revolution, put forward more radical democratic ideas in the practice of the French Revolution than contemporary bourgeois thinkers. He put forward the idea of establishing revolutionary legal system from revolutionary practice, thus organically combining democracy with legal system and democracy with dictatorship.

With the establishment of bourgeois political rule, during the period when the western bourgeoisie established and consolidated political power, the focus of democratic thought began to shift to the exploration of the general plan of governing the country. At this time, slogans such as freedom, equality and human rights used to oppose feudalism and theology during the revolutionary period have gradually been incorporated into the constitutions of various countries. Therefore, the primary task for bourgeois ideological politicians is to adopt what kind of ruling methods to defend the achievements of bourgeois revolution, build and govern the country and develop capitalism. Facing the new problems raised by the times, thinkers in different countries have different opinions.

On the issue of political system, Thomas Paine, a propagandist during the North American War of Independence, and Washington, the first president of the United States, both opposed the British constitutional monarchy and advocated the establishment of a political system based entirely on the principle that sovereignty belongs to the people. Benzaman Konstein emphasized that both monarchical power and bourgeois power should be strengthened.

In the division of state power, Thomas Jefferson and Washington in the United States advocated the separation of executive power, legislative power and judicial power, while Konstein in France advocated the separation of monarchical power, executive power, periodic representation, public opinion, (legislative power) and judicial power (judicial power).

In the form of democracy, Paine, Muller and others admire representative government, while Lawrence Lowell emphasizes "civilian politics", and most people use political power.

In promoting democratic politics, Jefferson, Washington and Dewey, a famous American educator and political thinker in the 20th century, all emphasized the important role of cultural education in promoting the process of democratization, while Lawrence Lowell emphasized the importance of public opinion.

In a word, western bourgeois political thinkers put forward various bourgeois ideological principles and policy programs according to their own wishes, historical conditions and national traditions, which constituted the main content of western liberal and democratic thoughts in this period. 10

Since 1930s, there has been a crisis in bourgeois freedom and democracy. First, fascism came to power in the 1930s, which seriously undermined and trampled on bourgeois freedom and democracy. Moreover, the establishment of a large number of people's democratic countries after World War II is in contrast with the democracy of a few people in capitalist countries ... So the contemporary western democratic trend of thought began to put forward various solutions and reform measures, which became a new theory for the bourgeoisie to get rid of difficulties. For example, American President Roosevelt, who came to power during the economic crisis, developed the democratic spirit of Jefferson and others, thinking that democracy is not only to achieve universal suffrage and let citizens in Germany express themselves freely, but also to meet the requirements of the times and adapt to the needs of politics and economy. He pointed out, "in the world, this word means defending great freedom and facing the invasion and attack of the dark forces of absolutism." "At home, democracy means maintaining and improving personal conditions and defending the social and economic freedoms that our country has achieved in the past century and a half." 1 1 In addition, hans kelsen, a jurist of monopoly bourgeoisie, tried his best to beautify bourgeois democracy, arguing that the economic system of capitalist countries is most closely related to the democratic system, and the argument that the economic system of socialist countries often leads to centralization was also put forward when socialist democracy put pressure on bourgeois democracy. In addition, such as Russell, Sartre, Marcuse and others, in order to provide a basis for their own plan to save democracy, they either rely on the authority of Marxism, or use balloons and political magic, or look for strength and basis in new science. In a word, although every bourgeois thinker has different solutions and political positions, they all aim to save the crisis and make the capitalist system last forever and remain young forever. 12

Second, democracy in reality: looking at the western democratic system vertically and horizontally

Since the victory of the bourgeois revolution, the bourgeois democratic system has experienced hundreds of years of development, forming three most typical models: constitutional monarchy, parliamentary system, presidential system and presidential system. However, democracy is not only embodied in the political system, but also in the political party system, electoral system, parliamentary system and so on.

Political parties and party system are the political creation of the bourgeoisie. The one-party system, two-party system and multi-party system in capitalist countries all embody bourgeois democracy to varying degrees. As a tool of bourgeois political rule, the political party system played an important role in the19th century. After entering the 20th century, it has adapted to the development of monopoly capitalism and presented new features. First, reformist parties have entered the political arena, such as the rise of the British Labour Party. These reformist parties are different from other bourgeois parties, and their party member and supporters are mainly workers and other laborers. For example, 75% of party member, the Swiss Social Democratic Party, is a worker who joined the party collectively through trade unions; The votes of the Democratic Party of the United States mainly come from trade unions and employees below middle income, blacks and ethnic minorities. These reformist parties do not deny the drawbacks of the capitalist system, pay attention to making some concessions to the people, and make a difference in the number of political democracy. The second is the legalization of the political party system. With the development of capitalism, it is required to clarify the political division of labor, straighten out the relationship between political parties and social organizations, parliament and government, and overcome the confusion of political functions. In this way, the legalization of the political party system has become a historical necessity. The German Basic Law 1949, the French Constitution 1958, and the Federal German Law on Political Parties 1967 all declare citizens' right to organize political parties freely, confirm the role of political parties in "expressing people's will", stipulate that political parties should abide by democratic principles, and legally guarantee the democracy of political parties.

The capitalist electoral system is the embodiment of the principle of "sovereignty belongs to the people". If we look at the bourgeois electoral system from a dynamic perspective, we can see that he has gone through a process of gradual improvement. The most important thing is about the electorate. In Britain, from 1640- 1832, not to mention ordinary workers and peasants, even the general industrial bourgeoisie usually has no right to vote; After 1832, the right to vote was extended to landowners and the middle class; 1867 the reform of the electoral system has been fruitful, and the upper classes of the bourgeoisie and the working class have obtained the right to vote; The third electoral system reform from 65438 to 0884 gave urban workers the right to vote. 19 18, British women obtained the conditional right to vote for the first time; According to 1969 electoral law, all citizens who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote according to law. In the United States, by the 1930s of 19, most of the restrictions on voters' property qualifications were lifted; After the Civil War, according to the Constitution of 1870, blacks also enjoyed the right to vote. 1920 adopted an amendment recognizing women's right to vote; After World War II, the American government successively abolished poll tax and "cultural test" as conditions to restrict the right to vote, thus greatly expanding the scope of the right to vote. 13

Parliament is the main symbol of bourgeois democracy, and the parliamentary system has formed today's model after long-term reform. In Britain, after the "glorious revolution" of 1688, the restriction of royal power and the control of parliament over the cabinet were gradually realized. From 1832 to 1867, Parliament (House of Commons) can easily overthrow the dissatisfied Prime Minister. The British Parliament has become the center of national life, with the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party taking turns to control and form the government alternately. In the United States, the role of the federal congress has been significantly strengthened after the civil war. Although it can't authorize the government organization, it has the highest legislative power, controls the finance of the whole country and holds the right to impeach the president, so it can also effectively supervise and restrict the government.

After entering the imperialist period, in order to meet the needs of new economic and political development, the bourgeoisie carried out a series of reforms on the parliamentary system. In terms of cabinet organization and rules of procedure, through reform, the institutions of parliament have gradually increased and become complete. In terms of legislation, firstly, there are more and more bills put forward by administrative organs; Second, the prevalence of "authorized legislation", that is, parliament only formulates general principles of laws and authorizes administrative organs to formulate resolutions, orders and detailed rules; Or it grants administrative organs certain legislative power; Third, the development of citizen initiatives and referendums, that is, citizens' direct participation in legislative work, is an important supplement to representative democracy.

Summary:

The article is written here, basically according to the idea of realization to rationalize the development and evolution of western democracy from theory to reality. However, due to the limited time and ability, there are still some problems in my idea. For example, from which angle should political democracy be defined most accurately? Or should it be a very broad concept, which is difficult to define with one word? For another example, do Chinese and Western democratic thoughts have their own characteristics? And how to explain a series of hot issues in real life with western democratic ideas (such as the US-Israel war some time ago). )? I think these are all issues worthy of the author's continued thinking.

1 Yan: "A Historical Survey of Democratic Concepts", quoted from the equivalent translation, Henan People's Publishing House, 1st edition, 1986, p. 8.

2 Mo Xi's classical democratic theory, translated by Li Shuzhen. Quoted from Research on Democracy and Public Decision-making, Zhao Chengji, Heilongjiang People's Publishing House, fourth edition, June 5438+February 2000.

3 Schumpeter's Capitalist Socialism and Democracy, quoted from the same page 8.

4 Lipsey's Political Man translated by Zhang Shaozong, quoted from the same as above, page 8.

5 See "Research on Democracy and Public Decision-making" by Zhao Chengji, Heilongjiang People's Publishing House, 1st edition, 9th page, February 2000.

6 Research on Western Freedom and Democracy, edited by Liu, Chongqing Publishing House1March 1990, first edition, p. 22.

7 Hegel's 100 letter. Quoted from Studies on Western Freedom and Democracy, edited by Liu, Chongqing Publishing House, 1990, first edition, p. 30.

8 On Hegel's Political and Legal Thoughts, quoted from Research on Western Freedom and Democracy, edited by Liu and others, Chongqing Publishing House, 1990, first edition, p. 32.

9' Theological Politics', quoted from' Research on Western Freedom and Democracy' edited by Liu, Chongqing Publishing House, 1990, 3rd edition 1, page 42,

10 See Research on Western Freedom and Democracy, edited by Liu et al., Chongqing Publishing House, 1990, first edition, March 102- 160.

1 1 Selected Works of Roosevelt The Commercial Press 1982, p. 307.

12, see Overview of Democracy Theory at Home and Abroad, Renmin University of China Press, September 1990, 1st edition, pp. 378-497.

13 See Zhao Chenggen's Research on Democracy and Public Decision-making. Heilongjiang People's Publishing House, first edition,130-161February 2000.